Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a website where you can learn just about anything for free.

The following is a quote from his TED talk (watch it in full below) when Salman is explaining his cousins’ feedback after receiving his tutoring via a YouTube video instead of face to face:

“They told me that they preferred me on YouTube than in person…They preferred the automated version of their cousin to their cousin. At first that’s very unintuitive, but when you actually think about it from their point of view it makes a ton of sense. You have this situation where now they can pause and repeat their cousin without feeling like they’re wasting my time. If they have to review something that they should have learned a couple of years ago or maybe a couple of years ago they don’t have to be embarrassed and ask their cousin. They can just watch those videos.

“If they’re bored they can go ahead, they can watch it at their own time at their own pace. And probably the least appreciated aspect of this is the notion that the very first time that you’re trying to get your brain around a new concept, the very last thing you need is another human being saying do you understand this.”

So much of what he says makes sense.

And I love Sal’s story. Stumbling on a great thing, turning it into a company, quitting his job, adoption by school systems…

Just amazing. Is this the future of education? Could you get your GED simply by taking Khan Academy classes for free? Could college educations eventually be free online, too? This is just another example of video on the internet is driving innovation and has the power to transform entire industries.

(via swiss-miss)

A great way to get images for your presentations is to take them yourself. Unfortunately, most of us don’t consider ourselves skilled enough to take high quality pictures on our own. But with some of the latest releases from Apple, it looks to me like it’s gonna be easier than ever to get better at photography. Here’s three reasons why.

1. iPhone volume button becoming a shutter button.

They say that if you want to get better at photography you need to carry a camera with you everywhere you go. But unless you’re already a photographer chances are you don’t lug your camera around most days. That is until your cell phone became a camera. The iPhone has a great camera in it, but it’s always been a little awkward to get to the app and to trigger the shutter since you have to touch the screen (rather than a physical button) to take the picture. Apple announced recently that iOS five will add a button to turn on the camera directly from the lock screen. Also, when using the camera, the volume up switch will become the shutter button, which will make the phone behave a lot more like a real camera. Add to that the ability to use the headphone volume controls to trigger the shutter, too, and the iPhone is quickly becoming more of a serious photography device.

2. Photo Stream makes it easier to get your pictures off the device.

One of the real problems with using my iPhone to take pictures, though, is moving those pictures to, well, anywhere else. Of course I can email them to myself, but that seems so clunky. With the newly announced iCloud, though, all of the pictures you take on the phone will automatically sync to your other devices, making it easy to share them, save them, etc. This is a big deal because just making things more convenient makes me more likely to use them. I’m betting you feel the same way.

3. Snapseed

The iPad already has a lot of good photo-editing apps, but the problem for me has been trying to get my pictures on to the iPad in the first place. This is a little easier if you have the camera connection kit, but still it’s not ideal. iCloud seems to be solving that (hopefully), which put me on the lookout for the best photo editing app out there. Recently I found Snapseed, a really powerful but still fun and easy to use photo editing iPad app. I’ve been using it for a week or so now and I have to say that it’s controls are really easy to figure out and make the whole process of editing photos much easier and more fun than any other app I’ve tried. And it’s a steal at just $4.99.

Check out this amazing new photo set by photographer, Melissa Munding. The look of the wedding was inspired by the film, Amelie.

I loved Amelie for its visual style, and this wedding captured that remarkably well. I love the simplicity and balance of the bright vivid colors and vintage-y feel. And Melissa’s capturing of the event is exquisite, too.

For more inspiration in this style you might also check out the movie itself, or the lesser known TV series, Pushing Daisies, whose producer, Bryan Fuller, said plainly that the look of the show was heavily inspired by Amelie. I would love to see some presentations that looked like this. Maybe I’ll have to make one.

Excellent work, Melissa!

Icebreakers is a really cool, simple to use idea to add some conversation starters to your next event. The site makes it cake-easy to create little name badges that you can customize with quirky questions or prompts for your attendees.

It’s no wonder Icebreakers is so simple and brilliant, as it was created by one of my favorite bloggers, Swiss-Miss. You can also check out the flickr pool of previous Icebreakers prompts if you need some inspiration.

The Logitech R800 is the next generation of the presentation remote I use whenever I speak. (Mine was much cheaper when I bought it, but it’s out of production now, which is why it’s so expensive. Just in case Dave Ramsey ever reads this.)

The R800 has some noticeable improvements over its predecessor including double the range (100 ft), a brighter, green laser, and a more ergonomic shape. Most of the great features from the old one are still here, too, including an LCD display with a battery indicator and countdown timer, and buttons for starting the slideshow and blanking the screen. It has a receiver which stores in the handle which plugs into the USB port of any computer. It works with Mac or PC without needing to install any software.

The only thing it seems to have lost are volume control buttons like the old model. But that’s not a feature I use very often.

All in all, this looks like a pretty good deal to me. Mine’s not broke, but if it were, I think this would be my choice to fix it.